The present invention relates to surgical instruments, and pertains particularly to an apparatus and method for passing suture through tissue.
Open surgery is now seldom used where other techniques such as arthroscopic, endoscopic or laproscopic surgical techniques are available because of the benefits to the patient. In open surgical procedures, the suture is typically attached to a needle and the needle is then used to draw the suture through the tissue. However, in closed surgical procedures where an interior surgical site is accessed through a narrow cannula it can be difficult to advance a needle and in particular a curved needle to the interior surgical site.
Therefore in closed surgical procedures, it is common to use a suture passer to pass sutures arthroscopically or percutaneously through tissue at a remote surgical site. Generally the surgical suture passers of the prior art incorporate a handle with a hollow needle extending from the distal end of the handle wherein the suture is advanced through the lumen of the hollow needle. However, such suture passers of the prior art tend to suffer from one or more deficiencies, including but not limited to: size, the need and ability to quickly change suture needles, the inability to reuse and sterilize the handle, complexity of operation, cost of manufacture, etc.
It is a principal object of the present invention to provide a new and improved method and apparatus for passing suture through tissue, such as labial tissue, which does not suffer from one or more of the disadvantages associated with the prior art.